


The Witcher Lambert in Eleven Parts

by asaucyginger



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, crappy childhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-08-07 06:56:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7704805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asaucyginger/pseuds/asaucyginger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You wanna know why I'm bitter?" Lambert said. Yes, Geralt replied.<br/>So Lambert gave him the story he gave just about everyone else, practiced and matter-of-fact. It is what it is and there it is and that's why he's not sunshine and roses all the damn time.<br/>This is what he left out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Witcher Lambert in Eleven Parts

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in the game verse, and if you've played through Lambert's quest, then you know his dad was an abusive asshole. Adjust accordingly if you have a hard time reading about the subject. No judgement; I feel ya.

**I.**

The only time Lambert and his mother ever got any peace was when his father was out at the pub getting shitfaced.

The word peace never quite conveyed what his house felt like when Dad wasn’t there. It was more than peace; it was a quiet so deep and perfect that neither Lambert or his mother ever said a thing to break it.

 

**II.**

Dear Old Dad had the capacity to be sober on occasion. 

These were rare occasions, ones Lambert marked with the same sort of reverence usually reserved by others for holidays.  _ Happy My Dad is Sober Day, kids! Here’s your gift! _

Not to spoil the surprise but it’s at least eight hours of Dad not stumbling around the house breaking shit, like an arm or a leg or the last fucking chair they had.

Unfortunately when Dad was sober-ish he always tried to do something man-of-the-house like. Instead of something that actually required help, he picked lower hanging fruit: Things Lambert or Mom had already done, but not up to “Dad Standards.” The Old Man liked turning these into precious father-to-son teaching moments.

“Blah blah blah boy, you have to pack the damn crack tighter with daubing and short straw, then clay then blah blah blah—”

“Fucking hell, boy. Can’t you lash at least one bundle of this thatching right? You should have blah blah blah—”

“You know, I thought you and your mom were at least smart enough to know better than plow a field with a dull blade. That’s not even close to being deep enough to plant. You should have blah blah fuckity blah something something.”

Just because this was Sober Dad didn’t mean Lambert could relax. Sober Dad was faster, better coordinated, and hit a hell of a lot harder. So Lambert had a few rules he always followed:

_ Rule 1: Be quiet unless he asks a question. _

“Did you see what I did there?” Sober Dad pointed to a crack in the wall of their one and four-eighths room home. His father smoothed dun-colored plaster flat with the wall to demonstrate.

“Yes—” 

_ Rule 2: Always say sir. _

“—sir.”

_ Rule 3: Take care if he asks you to try it. It could be a trap. _

“Now you try.”

_ Rule 3b: Go slow. Mimic what he did exactly, but don’t do it better. Do it just well enough. _

This was always tricky. Lambert moved slowly, hoping it looked as though he just now learning this skill instead of having known how to do it since he was fucking six. He filled a deep crack between the wall beams with a small wad of straw, packed tightly and held together with wet clay. He used another generous scoop of clay to hold it all in and smoothed over the patch so it was flush with the wall.

“Good, good. Now you’re learning.”

_ Rule 4: Follow up with an affirmative. _

“Yes, sir.”

_ Rule 5: Whatever you do, do not be a smart ass. _

“Golly, Dad. Thanks for showing me how to do this. I guess now I should redo all this work properly, huh?”

Yep. Better coordination, hit harder. Hell of a lot faster.

 

**III.**

“Dad’s reward for accomplishing anything at all, no matter how great or how small, was to have a friendly stout at the pub. Or two. Or twelve. Or however many drinks it took for him to get completely wasted. 

“Which usually meant the town’s innkeeper would show up at the doorstep the next afternoon asking Mom to settle the tab, of course.

“Like we even had two coppers to rub together, you know? Fuck. Me and Mom spent more than one early-ass morning scrubbing ale mugs and dirty floors. We carded wool and spun it sometimes, or washed and patched clothes. And let me tell you, I can sew better stitches than most of those fancy ladies with their embroidery. We just ended up doing whatever job needed doing that people would consider trading for. ”

Lambert’s favorite bartender was back. They hadn’t seen each other in a month or so, but once he ordered up an ale with eight vodka chasers it felt like no time at all.

“Surely you and your mam had your own things to do,” she replied as she leaned on the bar top.

“Yeah, we’d do ‘em if there was daylight left over. Quietly. Old Man was usually passed out and you definitely didn’t want to be the one to wake him up.”

_  
_ **IV.**

_ What did I do wrong? I won’t do it again, I promise.  _

_ Leave him alone, please. _

_ Little shit woke me up on purpose—he knows I got a goddamn headache.  _

_ It was an accident. He just tripped. Please just let him be. _

At least Mom tried. Was never going to happen, but she tried.

  
**V.**

“You know, I used to actually be relieved when he was beating on Mom instead of me? Relieved. That it wasn’t me.”

“Lambert, that doesn’t make you a bad person,” his favorite bartender said, “It makes you human.”

“No, it makes me the worst sort of shit that ever lived. Who in the fuck let’s his mother take that for him? Who gets fucking happy when she’s getting beaten up?”

He pushed the ale mug across the bar. 

“Refill please.”

Her eyebrows drew together only briefly before she took the mug. She never gave him shit for getting way beyond smashed, though; she always knew why he was in her pub and what he wanted.

“When Dad was finished, she’d wait for the bastard to leave then check on me. Can you believe it? She’s got a broken nose and she was worried about me.”

“From you've told me about her? Yeah, I can. She sounds like she was a good woman.”

He pressed his lips together. 

Funny, but he noticed that no matter how many other were in the tavern during the course of his visit, she stayed and listened for as long as he liked. The barmaids left her to him. She let him ramble, asked questions when the pauses seemed to beg for one, waited through others as though they didn’t feel like hours.

She poured and he talked.  The sun would set, come back up again, and though he could never recall how he always managed to wake up alone in a bed with the nicest, crispest white sheets ever made. Small flat, bit of food, and a hair-of-the-dog-that-bit-you on a nearby table. No one was ever around when he woke up. All alone. Quiet. And he always slept in.

“Yeah, thanks. Another refill please.”

  
**VI.**

_ Every time the old man left the house, Mom and I would pray he never came back. _

In all the years that had passed, he had yet to find the right word get people to understand. 

Every time his father left the house, any time his father left the house, Lambert and his mother watched the door close with guarded, steady eyes. 

The ritual of wanting began in that much longed for peace. 

_Don’t come back_.  
  
Don’t ever come back.

  
**VII.**

“Why did you save his fucking life, you stupid goddamn sack of useless goat crap?” 

After eight hours of screaming at the Witcher, Lambert’s voice was almost completely gone. Almost.

He stared at the man sitting on other side of a campfire with a mixture of loathing and more loathing. He’d been riding with the bastard for a few days heading north and the intensity of his loathing had not dimmed in the slightest. If anything, it was getting progressively stronger. If force of will was truly a thing, the Witcher’s head would have exploded long ago.

“You could have walked the fuck away,” Lambert said. “The biggest cocksucker in the world and you save his goddamn, motherfucking life.”

“Listen kid, I told you. I didn’t set out to save anyone. There was a contract on those nekkers,” the Witcher dully replied. “They just happened to be attacking your father when I got there.”

“Could have at least let them finish the job.”

“I’m there to kill monsters and that’s what I did.”

“Fuck that dumb shit. Bastard was getting what he deserved. That’s what we wished for you stupid prick.”

Lambert kicked at a patch of dirt with the toe of his well-patched boot.

_ Lambert, you’re going with Master Vesemir. _

His mother hadn’t even been home when Dad told him to leave. She’d gone to take back a load of fresh laundry to the innkeep.

_ Ain't got anything to pack for him. Just take him. _

Master Vesemir never came inside the house. He had collected his payment on the contract. Now he stood outside to collect Lambert in exchange for saving his father before moving on to fuck knew where. There was no waiting. Time to go.

“Did he offer me up or did you ask?”

Master Bag of Dicks stoked the fire with a long stick. “Does it matter, kid?”

“Does to me.”

“Fine,” he snapped. “I told your father ‘give me the first thing you see when you get home.’ It could have been a goddamn bucket for all I cared.”

Lambert’s back teeth ground down hard enough to crack iron. He was not—was  _ not— _ going to think about what might have happened when his mother got home and found out what happened.

“You didn’t have to take me. You could have lied and taken the fucking bucket.”

The Witcher looked directly into the fire. “Once certain words have been spoken by a Witcher, they cannot be taken back.” He narrowed his eyes, “And trust me, kid, in your case I should have lied and taken the damn bucket.”  
  


**VIII.**

There were twelve boys in Lambert’s group at the Witcher's keep of Kaer Morhen. The youngest was short and baby-faced, the oldest had a patchy mustache and bad skin.

Most of the boys had already been at Kaer Morhen for a few months when the Master Vesemir brought Lambert to train there. 

It was ever so much fun living there too. Like your balls slammed in a door every morning! 

The youngest trainees in the keep were responsible for all of the shit jobs, in order to help “build character.” The first morning he spent scrubbing the hall floors with the other trainees lasted about five minutes before he slung his rag on the floor in disgust.

“You know,” he said as the other boys looked at him mutely, “If you keep half-assing it like this they’re just going to make us redo it.”

“Better than cleaning the latrines.”

“Or peeling bushels of potatoes in the kitchens.”

“Or mucking the stables.”

"They'll keep making us do that too as long as we look like a bunch of idiots, " Lambert picked up the rag, rinsed it out as best he could in the murky wash water, squeezed a little bit of the extra water out, then snapped it open. “Or we could do a good job finishing this and maybe they’d actually let us do something  _ interesting _ . Besides, no one’s going to give you sword if you can’t even fucking wash a floor.”

One of the younger boys gasped. “Pavel! Lambert said a swear word!” 

Lambert rolled his eyes. 

“Oh for fuck’s sake. Shut up and watch me.”

He knelt down with the wet rag and quickly wiped a huge flagstone from inside to out in a circular pattern. He folded the rag over to a clean spot. Wiped the next one. Repeated the process until he had half a row of flagstones clean.

“Don’t bother scrubbing at the stone really hard. They’ll be happy to see it damp and reasonably clean. And if we all take a row and work toward the outside, we’ll get done in no time.”

As promised, a few weeks of this paid off. Brats that could get the whole main hall floor washed in a couple of hours or horse stalls expertly mucked in record time could be put to better use. They soon got their training swords and started learning the basic forms. Still had to help out with chores, but at least there was something to look forward to every day instead of more horse shit.

  
**IX.**

_ Edgar, Alfred, Miles, Voltehre, Kerr, Dominic, Elliot, that fucking idiot Pavel, Hugo. _

_ Henning then Balder. _

_ Coen.  _

_ Leo. _

_ Aiden. _

Lost people, kind of like lost things that slipped out of a pocket along the way. He stopped wanting to know what happened.

Lambert flopped over on a flat, straw-stuffed bed, the only one available in the small town of Middle-of-Nowhere, Velen. No booze, no women of loose morals, no nothing. And his mind refused to settle down, no matter how tired his body was. 

_ Edgar, Alfred, Miles—Voltehre, or was it Kerr first? _

_ Mom. _ Now what made him think of her after this long? She had—brown hair, blue eyes. Just like his had once been before the mutations. There wasn’t exactly a specific face any more, just the recollection of a feeling that he couldn’t never latch on to.

He rolled back onto the pallet.

_ \---no, definitely Voltehre, then Kerr, Dominic, Elliot, that fucking idiot Pavel, Hugo. _

_ Henning, Balder. _

_ Coen.  _

_ Leo. _

_ Aiden. _

_ Mom. _

  
**X.**

The silver sword is for monsters, the steel sword for humans.

It was supposed to be a demented joke among Witchers, one Vesemir never found very funny, but there was a kernel of truth to it. Silver swords were expensive and dulled quickly. No point using it on humans when there were so many other options.

He rode into his old home village toward dusk. Nearly twenty years gone, and he could barely see a difference. There was maybe a few more houses; they were all still dun colored and reeked of musty hay thatching. Just brown everywhere until the outskirts of the village, where green grass and spring flowers took over.

The look on his father’s face alone was worth the long ass trip from Kaer Morhen. The first moment on the Path and Lambert made the Path go straight back to that fucking old man.

Just like the rest of town, Dad hadn’t changed at all. Lambert found the man sitting in their old cottage, alone and drunk.

“Son,” his father stumbled away from the kitchen table, knocking over a couple of glasses, “My boy, look at you—”

His father embraced him, awkwardly wrapping his arms around Lambert’s new leather armor. And, wow, thanks to those fancy Witcher senses, Lambert could now detect five distinct kinds of alcohol on his father’s breath.

Neat.

“Son, oh my dear son, I always regretted it,” his father’s voice was muffled against the shoulder of Lambert armor. “I wanted to come find you so badly.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“I’m so sorry.” Sob. Sob. Sobsobsobs.“Please forgive me son. I’ve lived in agony since—”

“Where’s Mom?”

His father pulled back so quickly he almost fell over on his ass. “Your mum?”

“This is an easy question, old man. Where is Mom?” For the first time, his father apparently noticed the sharp steel sword Lambert held in his hand.

“Your mother—she’s taken off to visiting some of her family in Oreton, son.”

“Firstly, if you fucking call me son one more time I will cut your balls off,” Lambert calmly replied, “Secondly, where is Mom?”

“I told you, in Oreton.”

”You’re lying, you sad sack of fucks. Where is she?” Lambert raised the steel sword until it was level with his father’s left eye.

“I don’t know! She took off I swear!” His father fell over, scrabbling backwards until his ass hit a chair.

“Where is Mom?” Lambert stepped a little closer.

“I don’t know!” The old man just repeated this phrase over and over and over until finally Lambert swung the sword in a controlled arc, judging the distance to a degree so precise that the tip grazed his father’s forehead in a bloody but harmless path.

To which his father replied by sobbing even harder.

“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know I swear I don’t!”

Lambert executed another perfect swing, this time across his father’s throat.  Another faint line of bright blood. 

"Answer the question." He pressed the point of the sword into the soft roll of flesh hiding a thick vein.

“Blessed Melitele protect me in my hour of darkness that I may be—”

“You have one more chance before I take a step closer and carve you up for real.”

“Blessed Mother Melitele protect me—”

_Fuck this dumb shit._    
  
He dropped the sword and grabbed both sides of his father’s head, jerked him forward half off the chair. His father’s sobbing turned into a high, thin keening.

“God-fucking-dammit, where is Mom? Tell me now or I bash your fucking head in.”

“I don’t know where. I swear.” His father shook his head.

This was going nowhere. Lambert made the sign of Axii in against his father’s forehead; he hadn’t quite perfected the technique, and it took several tries, but finally his father’s eyes went dull and his body slack.

“Tell me where.”

“Gone,” the Old Man’s voice was flat. “Gone, gone, gone one morning. Up and gone one morning. Ne’er came back. Went off into the woods they said. Never found her. Don’t know where. Or what. Why. Went after you? Oh how I wanted her to come back; not you. Never wanted to see you.”

Lambert sat back on his heels. His ass hit the dirty floor.

 

**XI.**

His nice bartender took away the empty ale mug and returned it with a full one.

The drink sat untouched for a long time.

He’d already been drinking most of the night again. He’d probably keep drinking until he ended up in her bed, sleeping it off between cool white sheets while she crashed in an old red velvet wing chair. Apparently he was a blanket hog.

“Ever wonder what happened in the end?” She was tapping one finger on the bar top.

“Sometimes. But then again, what’s it going to change?”

“Might be a bit of closure.”

“Closure?” He laughed. “As long as I’m Witcher, I ain’t getting any fucking closure.”

“Fair enough,” she said as she scraped at a bit of something with her thumbnail.  For a moment, she had this thousand-yard-stare. A look deep off into the distance as if she were trying to remember something.

He pulled a few crowns out of his bag and stacked them in front of her. She looked back to him at the sound of the heavy gold coins clinking against each other.  
  
“For the tab. Tip’s in there too.”

She nodded. It was time to call it night. Or a day. Or whatever goddamn time it would be when he opened the door.


End file.
